June 4, 2019 – Daniel Voyager

Patch Linden posted a small update today on The New Linden Homes Update thread on the Second Life Forums regarding the Linden Homes covenant and in response to many questions the lab have had on the “commercialism within the new Linden Homes”.

The general message is this “if it feels commercial, then you probably shouldn’t be doing it”. Here is the text of the addition to the updated covenant which comes into effect from today.

The new section….

*Activities and items that could be construed as commercial and for profit by Linden Lab are not permitted in the residential homes and houseboats in Bellisseria.

The small update in full…

Hi everyone, I have a small update for you regarding the Linden Homes covenant today.

This is in response to the many questions we’ve had surrounding forms of commercialism within the new Linden Homes. The general gist here is: if it feels commercial, then you probably shouldn’t be doing it. Here is the text of the addition to the covenant which goes into effect today:

Activities and items that could be construed as commercial and for profit by Linden Lab are not permitted in the residential homes and houseboats in Bellisseria.

As a note of clarification and to call out a specific use case example: If a content creator is using a Linden Home as a display model to feature content they’ve created specifically for a Linden Home, this by itself is ok. What you may not do is put up signage on the parcel that advertises it, your store, brand, redirect people away from the home for purchases, etc. You can not sell items off your parcel. What you can do is direct people to your Linden Home as a demonstrator of your creations from elsewhere (your main store or marketplace listings). Also, the little cafe/pub type places that have popped up are really awesome and fun, but should also follow the same sorts of guidelines.

We think in spirit, the desire to maintain the community feel of the neighborhood and homes, that this small adjustment to the covenant will help to make things clear that these are homes, not stores or shops. We have other plans in place to satisfy requests for something like a yard sale, where you could feature Linden Homes add-ons in a communal area already in place, to come soon™.

What do you think of the updated covenant ?

June 2019 Update

The new Bellisseria continent & the new houseboats area – 4th June 2019

We are now six months into 2019 and it’s time to look at the Second Life grid statistics since the start of the year. So far it’s been a rather positive year for region growth for Private Estates and Linden Owned regions.

I think most of the region growth has come from Linden Owned regions as the new Bellisseria continent opened back in mid April. Hundred’s of more regions are expected to join the Bellisseria continent later this year. The original SSP regions are likely to be moved over to fill up the empty space down south.

It’s unknown what will happen to the original SSP continent after the new Bellisseria continent has been fully completed. They could still remain as a working ground or they could be removed fully which would mean a big drop in regions. Likewise with the old Linden home continents which is estimated to shut down sometime in 2020.

Main Grid Size

Linden Owned and Private Estates are showing positive growth now..

As of 2nd June 2019

Total Main Grid Regions: 24, 147
Linden Owned: 8, 017
Private Estates: 16, 130

30th December 2018

Total Main Grid Regions: 23, 811
Linden Owned: 7, 691
Private Estates: 16, 120

Since the end of 2016 there has been a sharp increase in Linden Owned regions. Private Estates did decline in 2017 but since then have been showing positive growth again.

18th March 2018

Total Main Grid Regions: 23, 298
Linden Owned: 7, 240
Private Estates: 16, 058

31st December 2017

Total Main Grid regions: 23, 332
Total Linden Owned: 7, 226
Total Private Estates: 16, 106

3rd January 2016

Total number of Main Grid regions: 24, 886
Linden Owned: 7, 111
Private Estates: 17, 775

Reduced Land Costs

LandPriceChange2019 (1).jpg

The lab have reduced land prices during the first half of 2019 which has helped to grow the grid and interest has been on the increase I think especially for the new Linden Homes/Houseboats. As of this week full region prices have been reduced by as much as $20/month and I’m sure now there will be many more Private Estates in the weeks ahead.

The lab reduced prices last year…

This round of pricing changes continues our commitment to improving the overall health of the Second Life economy, which had historically overly relied on payments for land. This change follows last year’s 15% Private Estates price drop and 10% Mainland price reduction and doubling of land allotment for Premium Members. Excitingly, this is the first time we’re also lowering prices on grandfathered and buydown regions!

The first Premium price increase in over a decade will come into an effect as of 24th June.

Second Life Concurrency

The Second Life concurrency seems to be averaging between 27, 000 (min) to 46, 000 (max) at the moment. The average seems to between 36, 000 – 38, 000 mark at the moment.

The SL Online Now website tracks logged in users in real time by day, week, month and year. It’s a really good useful page to see how many users are in Second Life at any given time with historical graphs.

The Second Life Grid Survey has tracked the daily concurrency since 5th December 2009 and as you can see the maximum daily concurrency has declined with a small peak happening now and then every year.